(Detroit) In our pages on Monday, Lane Hutson’s agent, Sean Coffey, highlighted the “very good culture” in the Canadian’s locker room.
He was referring to the veterans of the team, notably the captain, Nick Suzuki, as well as the defender Mike Matheson, who had taken the trouble to contact the young player to welcome him after he had signed his contract with the Canadian, Friday.
It didn’t stop there. Sunday evening, teammates took him out for dinner. David Savard, Samuel Montembeault and Rafaël Harvey-Pinard, the same people who invited Joshua Roy to New York in January, once again formed the welcoming committee. Another Quebecer was added, Matheson, as well as Joel Armia, another guy whose flag is blue and white (we do our best to find links).
“It’s having fun with him. It’s the little things that make the difference, Savard believes. We try to go to dinner with him, to invite him into everything we do. By doing this, he will feel like he is part of the team.
“When you feel like you’re part of it, you play better on the ice. That’s always been our goal here. He will be a big part of our future and if we do that well, he will feel good on the ice. »
On the other end of the phone, Lane Hutson’s father confirms: the team’s veterans were nice to his son. He also added Cole Caufield to those who contacted the player. Out of modesty, he prefers not to give details, “to leave those moments to the guys”.
Several friends
Rob Hutson, however, is more talkative when it comes to detailing the “other” welcoming committee that came to support the young defender for his first NHL game. Many of them made the trip to attend Monday’s match.
We say “make the trip,” because even though Lane Hutson is listed by the NHL as a native of Holland, a Michigan community some 250 km from Little Caesars Arena, it was in the suburbs of Chicago that he spent the majority of his life.
This is where he spends his summers. And you had to see his face on Monday morning, when he was asked to describe what it was like to face Patrick Kane, former Blackhawks legend, now a member of the Red Wings. Hutson’s reaction (at 1:00 p.m. in the video) didn’t lie.
Watch the video
Hutson therefore played this match in front of around twenty relatives. His three brothers, Quinn, Cole and Lars, were there. But also “his mother, his grandmother, his uncle Ken, several coaches from his minor hockey, friends who supported him,” lists Rob Hutson, who also made the trip.
What made this first match special? “Every young person dreams of the NHL,” replies the father. To have this opportunity is quite an achievement. It’s a reminder of all the work required to get there. »
“Feed him, feed him!” »
In the specific case of Lane Hutson, this work had to be done despite a size that was not necessarily ideal for the NHL.
At Boston University, he was listed at 162 lbs. In the NHL press notes, it’s 158 lbs. At the time of his draft, in 2022, he measured only 5’8″ (he has gained two inches since) and had also presented himself at the evaluation camp, a month earlier, with medical reports attesting that he had not finished growing.
Understand here that if hockey does not work for him, it is not by pulling buses with his hair that he will earn his living.
Thus, despite undeniable offensive talent, he waited until 62e rank before hearing his name.
Rob Hutson also remembers the hours following his son’s draft in Montreal. “It seemed like the draft was in Montreal, because when we went out, people in the street already knew who he was. Then we went to dinner in an Italian restaurant near the Bell Centre, and people were saying: feed him, feed him! »
In short, for Hutson to make it to the biggest league on Monday, many people had to get over his size and trust him.
“His loved ones who were at the match, his former coaches too, they are all people who believed in him, regardless of his size,” said Rob Hutson. We’ve heard that forever. They told him: “Wait in the pee-wee, you won’t be able to survive.” It was the same thing before he arrived in bantam, then in midget, then in university.
“It would have been easy to see this as excuses to justify the fact that he will never make it to the NHL. But our mentality was more to say: why not? »